CALL for PROPOSALS
Southeast Conference of the Association for Asian Studies

January 29-31, 2027

“Asias in the Remaking: Histories, Practices, Imaginaries”

The University of Tennessee, Knoxville is pleased to host the 66th Annual Meeting of the Southeast Conference of the Association for Asian Studies (SEC/AAS). The conference will be held in person at the University of Tennessee Student Union in Knoxville, Tennessee.

We cordially invite proposals for panels, roundtables, individual papers, and workshops that engage, but are not limited to, the conference theme, “Asias in the Remaking: Histories, Practices, Imaginaries.”

All disciplines focusing on Northeast Asia, Inner Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Asian diaspora are welcome, as are comparative, inter-Asian, and global Asia topics. Faculty, graduate students, undergraduate students, and independent scholars from all regions are encouraged to share their work, receive feedback, and network at the conference.

Participants may consider how Asia and Asian diasporas have been made and remade through historical processes, cultural production, political transformation, migration, memory, environmental change, everyday practice, and acts of imagination. Topics may include, but are not limited to, shifting regional and global orders; contested histories and memories; changing social formations; media, digital cultures, and popular culture; artificial intelligence and technology in Asian contexts; architecture and the built environment; rural life, ecological crises, and climate futures; gender, sexuality, and labor; empire, decolonization, and postcolonial legacies; religion and philosophy; visual and material culture; and emerging methodologies and directions in Asian Studies.

The SEC/AAS will award four prizes at the 2027 conference: best book, best article, best graduate paper, and best undergraduate paper. Eligible works include books and articles published in 2026 and graduate and undergraduate papers written in 2026 and nominated by a faculty advisor. Any use of generative AI in preparing a submitted paper must be acknowledged.

A limited number of $200 student travel grants will also be available. Applicants should indicate their interest when submitting their proposals. Preference will be given to students based in the Southeast who must travel more than 200 miles to attend the conference.

Proposal Deadline: October 31, 2026

Click here to submit a proposal

Acceptance notifications will be sent on a rolling basis as the program committee meets throughout October and November.

All conference participants must be dues-paying members of SEC/AAS. Annual dues are $20 for faculty and $10 for students and will be collected as part of the conference registration fee.

Please direct questions about the conference to the local coordinators:

The image in the header is from the Ewing Gallery at UT-Knoxville. It is “No. 32, Umegae, from the Series Lady Murasaki’s Genji Cards (Murasaki Shikibu Genji Karuta).” Learn more from the Ewing Gallery’s website.